Pre-Flight Checklist

I am a lucky soul.  I get to fly home a few times each year to visit family and friends and forget the world that exists beyond the Pacific.  I also never have to deal with flying on or around the Thanksgiving melee and generally avoid the also-hectic Christmas flying season.

Flying is a marvelous human invention, and those who do it frequently have a culture all their own, with stories and traditions and etiquette that is passed from generation to generation.  In Shenzhen we are surrounded by many of these people, all eager to tell their tales and impart their sagely wisdom to younger ears.  The few expat bars that exist here are not dissimilar from airport bars in that they are frequented with regular travelers, often only in town for a week or so.  It's a weird little world meeting the random men and women (but really mostly men) that fly into Shenzhen multiple times per year to check on a factory, meet with a supplier, do something nefarious for Apple (I'll write on the world of overseas Apple people someday), or to check on a logistics operation.

These are the international warriors of the skies, and people for whom I have greater respect than the consultant who flies from New York to Kentucky every Monday for 3 months.  They have been to every international hub, have religious routines, and can fit their world into a set of carry-ons.  Conversations revolve around a 2 big topics: upgrade strategies and health/jet-lag issues.  The upgrades I'll leave out of this post, but the health one is something that is interesting.  We all seem to agree that hydration is first and foremost on the notoriously dry flights, which is an interesting story in its own right.  But general health is largely a topic that most people either deal with by way of vitamin C supplement or just resign themselves to a bit of the sniffles after 15+ hours in the air.

The holiday flight season comes with articles from all over about flying, and I came across one on a Gawker site this morning:  http://io9.com/5862234/why-flying-on-planes-can-make-you-sick-+-and-how-to-stop-it

It's more eye-opening than I had expected and definitely worth a read if you fly, or worth forwarding to someone who does.